News ORDER A NEW JEWISH NEWS SUBSCRIPTION TODAY AND RECEIVE THIS VIDEO, A $22.95 VALUE, ABSOLUTELY FREE! GROWING PAINS page 1 Sing Around The Seasons A Chanukah Gift No One Can Hold A Candle To. This is a gift your children will never outgrow. An award-winning video that celebrates Jewish traditions and communicates to them with original music, brilliant characters and fun loving animation. A new subscription to The Jewish News makes a great gift for yourself, friends or relatives. It's a yearlong gift that opens up into a weeldy surprise of exclusive features, up-to-the-minute news and in-depth stories. All brought to you by award-winning journalists who treat the issues of the day with sensitivity and caring. Plus, throughout the year there are even more surprises like Style magazine along with our many seasonal in-paper features. This Chanukah, figuring out what to get the kids — or the grandkids — is as easy as ordering a subscription to The Jewish News. To order a Jewish News subscription for yourself or as a gift, call 354-6620 or return the form below. NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS ONLY Receive 52 issues plus six issues of Style magazine for only $39.00 ($54 out - of - state). ❑ Yes, I would like a subscription to The Jewish News. ❑ Payment enclosed. ❑ Charge to my ❑ MasterCard ❑ VISA Exp. Card # ❑ I'd like to send the subscription as a gift to: Ncrne Address CrtY Stale Zip Signature (required) Phone M Name Gift card message Send the free gift to: ❑ Me 0 Recipient My Address City Phone State Zip 4 Please send all payments along with this coupon to: The Jewish News, P.O. Box 2267, Southfield, MI 48037-2267 or call 354-6620 or 1-800-875-6621 out-of-state, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. All phone orders must pay by credit card. All orders must be received by November 7, 1994. AD 994 petus for the expansion and im- provement plans. Enrollment has grown to 635 students and the school anticipates having 750 to 800 students by the end of the decade. Administrators for the day schools say the growth can be attributed to several factors. For one, the recent immigration of Russian Jews into the Detroit metropolitan area has increased day schools' populations. Another is that the children who graduated from the day schools in the 1960s and 1970s are sending children of their own. However, hurdles stand in the way of accommodating the growth. For one, money does not come as easily when the parents have to shell out between $3,000 to $6,700 annually per child for tu- ition. Take Darchei Torah, an Orthodox day school that oper- ates without funding from the Jewish Federation of Metro- politan Detroit. The student pop- ulation has grown from 14 nine years ago to 225 for the 1994- 95 school year. While nearly all the other Jewish day schools receive thou- sands of Federation dollars to support their programs, the money for the operation of Darchei Torah comes directly from the parents. Tuition is ap- proximately $4,000 annually per child. The school recently decided to start a building fund. It has out- grown its rented rooms in the Agency for Jewish Education building in Southfield. To hold the overflow crowd, the school has started to use two portable classrooms in the back of the building as well as a rabbi's study. Darchei Torah's latest hope of finding a permanent home was dashed Tuesday night when the Birmingham School Board vot- ed to sell a building located on the corner of Evergreen and 13 Mile Road to William Beaumont Hospital for $1.3 million. The site will be used for a nursing home pending rezoning. Stuart Sandweiss, the school's vice-president, was disappoint- ed with the results of the vote but said the school does not plan to stop looking. "We are going to . explore every possibility we can get," he said following the meet- ing. Sol Lachman, volunteer fund- raising chairman for Darchei Torah, said the school will con- tinue a $2 million fund-raising drive to meet the costs of a new building. To raise that money, the fund- raising committee has asked each of the school's 87 families to make a minimum contribu- tion of $2,000. So far, $260,0000 has been collected from the par- ents, Mr. Lachman said. "I go to the houses to make an appeal," he said. "The parents who have nothing, I mean noth- ing, will pledge $3,000 and write a check for $1,000. They tell me not to cash it for three weeks." "I go out to my car and cry," he said. For schools that own build- ings, the dilemma is different. It is deciding whether to update the current building or move to a new one. Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, princi- pal at Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, grappled with the same issue. The school was in need of a new roof, a boiler and a gym. But instead of moving, the Yeshiva initiated a $1 million campaign. Schools strive to meet spatial needs to serve more students. Now the children shoot bas- kets in a large gymnasium, peer out of brand new windows and play learning games on state- of-the-art computers. The hall- ways in the 30-year-old building have the scent of new carpeting and sparkle with a new coat of paint. "Sure, we could have moved. But we have been here for this long. It suits our needs," Rabbi Mayerfeld said. "It just needed a little sprucing up which we did." "Now we can be here for an- other 30 years," he said. For the schools that decide to move, finding something in a lo- cation central to the changing Jewish community is a chal- lenge. Public school districts in the area have slowed the rate of closing schools; others have placed deed restrictions on the vacant buildings, limiting their future use to non-competitive ventures such as hospitals or nursing homes. Akiva is hoping that some- thing in the Southfield School District or another neighboring district opens up. "We would prefer to stay in the Southfield area as most of our students come from the Southfield area," Mr. Eisenberg said. "No one is pushing us to go. to West Bloomfield." "Nothing is set in stone, though," he said. "I think the only thing we know for sure is that we have to do some- thing." ❑